A little bit of background.

Every cuisine has a pancake recipe of one sort or another. Blini are the Russian variant. In Russia, they are often eaten sweet, with accompaniments such as condensed milk, sour cream, jam, apple slices or chocolate sauce, although you are just as likely to find them used as a wrap for fillings such as a minced beef and onion mixture.

This means that the principal time for eating blini in Britain, say, will be Christmas. The principal time for eating blini in Russia is Maslenitsa, or the week before Lent begins. Yes, the Russians do not have a pancake day, but a pancake week. The Russian Orthodox Church is still very big on proper fasting, particularly although not exclusively during Lent, which can mean giving up meat, eggs, dairy products, fish, wine or oil. It is important to get a good run up.

Many recipes for blini written in English involve yeast and whisked egg whites. This does not.

This is because most Russians, when called upon to make blini, will go to the shop, buy one of the special packets of ready-made blini flour, add some milk and that will be the end of the matter. Even abroad this flour is widely available in Eastern European delis.

Unfortunately, well-stocked Eastern European delis do not, even in London, exist on every street corner so here is what a genuine Russian babushka¹ does when civilisation is unavailable. This is, in fact, my mother in law's recipe. Or rather her mother's. My mother in law is a Moscovite. They sell blini flour there. My grandmother in law was an illiterate peasant. Even now, rural Russia does not depend 100% on shops to provide its food and drink and as you will see, this is cooking for people who keep cows or who are ex-pat Russians.

Ingredients.

• A four pint² carton of full-fat milk
• Flour (self-raising³ or a mixture of self-raising and buckwheat flour)
• 2 medium eggs
• 2 dessertspoons of vegetable or sunflower oil

Method.

First take the carton of milk and put it on a radiator. Which should be on.

Leave this overnight.

When it has separated into a sort of yellowish water at the top with a rather squidgy mass at the bottom, pour the milk into a pan and apply heat. Not too much though; it mustn’t boil. Leave it to cool down.

Pour the mixture into a colander lined with four layers of muslin. Make sure there is a pan underneath to catch the liquid.

Gather the edges of the muslin together and twist them to make a closed bag. Don’t squeeze too hard or everything will come through the sides of the muslin and be lost. Weight the ball of milk remnants down with something like a jam jar filled with water and leave for at least four hours until all the water has been pushed out. Open up the muslin and scrape whatever is there into a bowl.

Congratulations. This is tvorog.

Tvorog is sort of cross between cottage cheese and cream cheese which Russians eat a bit like yoghurt by mixing fruit and such into it. Sometimes they make a sort of baked cheesecake out of it by adding raisins and putting it into the oven in a pastry case. Or they use it along with jam to stuff Russian-style ravioli. The possibilities are many.

Unfortunately, one of the few things tvorug isn’t used for is making blini.

No, it’s the by-product of the tvorog, the milky water carefully collected during the straining process that is the crucial ingredient in these Russian pancakes.

You can skip this entire introduction to blini-making ⁴by buying a quantity of buttermilk. Buttermilk isn't what you have made if you have followed the tvorog recipe above. Whey is what you have made if you have followed the tvorog recipe. In fact, what you have just made is curds and whey, Little Miss Moffat style.⁵ Unfortunately, you can't buy whey in the shops at all. You'll probably need to thin the buttermilk with water or milk before you use it here. You could, of course, just use regular milk, but it will lack the sourness you are after. The addition of some lemon juice might⁶ help with that.

Should you have made your own whey, the liquid will keep a day or so in the fridge. When it’s needed, heat it until it is tepid. Add the two eggs and beat until frothy. Add self-raising flour, or the mix of self raising and buckwheat flour,⁷ and beat. You want enough flour to make a fairly gloopy pancake batter. Add two desert-spoons of vegetable or sunflower oil.

And then you cook them as with regular pancakes. They won't be good for flipping, although you will need to cook them on both sides. Use a pallette knife or similar to turn them over. If your mixture is just right, small holes will form in the blini as you cook them. Technically, in Russia 'blini' is a word used only for full-sized pancakes. If you want the smaller pancakes, known as 'olyadii' in Russian, then use a dessertspoon to get the batter into the pan.

Now the only thing left to do is eat them. Enjoy.